One week after running the race…here are my thoughts.
It is not necessary to get to Boston on Saturday. Hotels are expensive near the finish line, and you can save a day by getting the first flight on Sunday. The expo is open until the evening, and the race number pick-up is extremely efficient. The expo is so crazy that it’s really not worth staying there for too long. Expos at other marathons are significantly better. I’m assuming the Boston expo is really expensive for vendors and lots of them stay away.
You can buy the official merchandise on-line and not have to haul it home. Plus free shipping ! So do a quick try-on at the expo and order on-line.
There is a moderately efficient bus and subway system in Boston. It’s kind of awkward to haul luggage through the subway. I used a van to get from the airport to hotel room, and it cost $20 including tip. I used the subway on the way home, and it was OK, but really crowded.
Boston is 100% walker friendly. On Sunday morning I walked to Cambridge and the MIT campus. It was a beautiful morning, but the wind was high and I thought my face was going to freeze off walking the bridge over the Charles River. Be ready for winter conditions !
I spent way too much time on my feet on Sunday. There are so many things to see and do the temptation is really high. Flying in Sunday will help with this, since you simply won’t have the time to walk around.
Boston registration is $110, but it is a relative bargain. The shirt is a very nice technical which would probably cost $40 or $50 in a running specialty store. Pre-race and post-race dinner tickets were included. I went to the pre-race dinner and the pasta was quite good, and there was free beer ! Every one got a bag of snacks including some very good chocolate bars. I was impressed. I didn’t go to the post-race party because I was too wiped out from running the race.
There is a huge squadron of buses which take the 25000 runners to the start line. The Boston course is point-to-point in approximately a straight line. The start is in a little town called Hopkinton, which is west-southwest of downtown Boston. It is recommended to get in the bus line EARLY, especially if you are in wave 1 (10:00 AM start). I got there about 6:30 AM. I should have been there at 6:00 AM sharp. The lines for the buses are huge and this forces you to spend excess time on your feet. You will feel like a cow in a very large herd.
Don’t drink too much on the bus. The ride is about an hour. This doesn’t seem to bad, however, the lines for the port-a-potties are really long ! I waited about 45 minutes. This is in the so-called “Athlete’s Village”, which seems to be the athletic fields of the local high school. It looks like some sort of refugee camp. There are runners sitting and lying all around. I can’t imagine what this would be like if it was wet and raining.
I thought my bladder was going to explode waiting in that damned line ! There are a huge number of the port-a-potties, the problem is there just isn’t enough room for more. A BAA rep jumped on board the bus as we arrived and warned us not to pee in the forest. She said there were cops in there arresting people for trespassing !
I ate a single peanut butter sandwich at about 8 AM and a gel pack. That’s all I had to eat prior to the 10:00 AM start. This worked extremely well as I had no digestive problems at all.
Runners were instructed to put there stuff in the yellow bag from the expo on board the buses. This was the Boston version of the “check-in” of stuff that is common at large marathons. I never use this and I don’t understand why it is necessary. I had throw-away shirts and $5 Walmart warm-up pants that worked perfectly. Clothing was being collected and donated to a local charity. I dropped off the pants and shirts at the collection booth just prior to walking to the start.
Oh yea, and the start is 0.7 miles from the athlete’s village. More time on your feet ! Simply getting from the hotel room to the start is quite an ordeal at this race. Much more involved than any other race I have participated in.
If you are farther back in the corrals, you will have to ascend a very steep hill before you cross the start line ! Hopkinton is a very small town. I’ll bet the residents are less than excited about race day, and are glad when it is over !
I was able to sneak to the start line for a couple of minutes and watch the elite men warm up. The women had already left. The National Anthem was played and there was a jet flyover.
I got back to my assigned corral and squeezed in, and it was like business as usual in any large marathon. Watch the arms and legs and try to get going. Only this time I was a “middle of the pack” guy. There was little room to maneuver. Very tightly packed in ! Controlling pace was not easy; it was like being swept down a river by a current of runners.
The course is hilly, but I wouldn’t call it serious climbing. It definitely adds character to the course. It’s more engaging than a dead flat course like Miami or Chicago. The descent at about mile 15 was the only area where I got into trouble. I felt my knees getting hammered a bit, and had to pull in the reins. The Garmin registered my fastest pace on this downhill.
The girls at Wellesley College where everything I had heard and read about. It was literally a “wall of sound”. It was definitely motivating, and a sample of things to come.
Crowd support in this race is phenomenal. From the very beginning there are people on both sides of the road. There were numerous non-race affiliated water stops. There are also lots of orange slices available, and even tissue if you need to wipe your nose ! The official water stations were extremely well stocked with water and Gatorade. I used them often. I had two or three gels which I used in the last half of the race, making sure to dilute them out with plenty of water. I still don’t know if those gel things work, but they definitely give a mental boost.
I had no problem with the “Newton Hills”. I simply maintained an even effort, slowing on the upgrades and speeding up on the downgrades. “Heartbreak Hill” was a little disappointing. I wanted something more awesome. I guess I expected to see dying runners on the course or something. It’s really not that big of a hill. It’s the placement in the race that really makes it’s reputation. My legs felt fatigued at the top of this series of hills, but they quickly recovered as I crested the tops and continued onward.
Boston College was really cool and the crowd enthusiasm matched or exceeded Wellesley College. I got plenty of “high fives”, and I was really enjoying the race at this point.
I was quite pleased to make it to about mile 23 before I really started to suffer. My training was minimal and short for this race. I averaged about 25 miles per week starting in February, and my longest long-run was 18 miles (which I only did once). All of my long-runs were done on A1A on Fort Lauderdale beach. The Las Olas, 17th Street, and Sunrise bridges were incorporated into the runs as much as possible. Groups like Friends In Training are smart to train there, as it is the best you can do to prepare runners for hilly race courses.
I ran four races during my Boston build-up: Maroone 5K, Miami 13.1, Riverwalk 5 mile, and the Corporate Run. All of these races include bridges. Miami 13.1 was brutal ! Running these races gave me an extra mental edge with regards to dealing with hills.
But at mile 23 and through the finish line the crowd support is phenomenal. If you can’t pick up some energy from this Boston crowd, there’s something wrong with you. I was feeling some hamstring cramping coming on, and I started seeing…a few runners clutching their hamstrings and limping along the course. PLEASE let my muscles keep working until the finish !
Another runner was waving a sports banner from Ottowa Canada. This caused much anger in the sports-fanatical Boston crowd. I drifted over to him and said “They LOVE you here !”. He was having the time of his life waving that banner and hearing the boos from the spectators.
Boston is by far the most dramatic finish I can recall from all races I have ran. There are the only sharp turns in the entire race and the crowd just goes wild. Most of the course is in small towns, but as you approach the finish it transforms to the big city. That’s how you know you are getting close.
My goal was 3:15 and I used every last drop of energy to hammer over the finish line in 3:14:33. I think if the race was another 10 yards longer my hamstrings would have locked up.
The wind had picked up and it seemed to be getting colder. I started to chill down fast ! They wrapped a mylar wind deflector around me, but it was useless, as the wind kept blowing it off me. The “de-chipped” me and gave me my medal. The finish line area is huge and seems to be servicing hundreds of runners at once. Next you get marshalled along to the food area. There are some bagels and water and stuff, and I stuffed my face quickly and moved on. After that there was a huge aisle made of the buses full of the yellow bags of stuff. This seemed to go on for a half-mile. By this time I was starting to shiver. My only thought was to get back to the hotel. By a very round-about path I got back to the hotel and dived back into my room. I turned the heat up and got under the covers to try to thaw out. It was amazing how quickly I went from toasty warm to shivering cold !
I had stocked the hotel room with food and that was a very good thing !
I spent some time on the phone and computer letting everyone know the race had gone well.
Pictures from Boston:
Saturday
Sunday Walk to Cambridge
Boston Marathon